Braves Exercise Tyler Flowers’ Option, Decline R.A. Dickey’s Option

The Braves announced on Monday that they’ve exercised their $4MM club option on catcher Tyler Flowers and declined their $8MM club option over R.A. Dickey in favor of a $500K buyout. Dickey will receive that $500K payout even if he decides to retire, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets. Atlanta also announced that Flowers underwent an arthroscopic debridement surgery on his left wrist on Oct. 9, though the press release states that he’s expected to be ready for Spring Training 2018.

The decision to exercise Flowers’ affordable option was among the easiest calls in baseball this offseason. The 31-year-old Flowers (32 in January) enjoyed a career year at the plate, hitting .281/.378/.445 with a dozen homers and 16 doubles. He also rated as baseball’s top pitch-framing catcher, per Baseball Prospectus, and he halted 23 percent of stolen base attempts against the Braves’ pitching staff in 2017. Flowers will once again pair with Kurt Suzuki, who signed a late-season extension with the Braves, to shoulder the bulk of the catching duties for the Braves in 2018.

Dickey, 43 this weekend, was one of three veteran acquisitions for the Braves’ rotation last offseason and proved to be the only one that truly panned out. Bartolo Colon was released over the summer, while Atlanta was content to simply allow the Twins to eat the remainder of the salary on left-hander Jaime Garcia’s contract and took less in return than they surrendered to acquire Garcia when dumping him on Minnesota.

Dickey, though, proved to be exactly what the Braves hoped: a stabilizing innings eater that soaked up some starts while the Braves’ young arms continued their development in the upper minors. The knuckleball specialist took the hill 31 times for the Braves, with his final outing of the year representing his 300th career start and his 400th career MLB appearance. In those 31 starts, he logged 190 innings with a 4.26 ERA, 6.4 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and a 46.9 percent ground-ball rate.

There’s been talk that the 2017 season may have been the final chapter of Dickey’s career, though his overall performance certainly seems to suggest that he could return for a 16th Major League season if he still has the desire to continue pitching.

The Braves, clearly, are now set at catcher with Flowers and Suzuki in tow for the 2018 campaign, but their rotation presents a far bigger question mark. Julio Teheran and Mike Foltynewicz both struggled through pedestrian campaigns in 2017, while top prospect Sean Newcomb yielded slightly better results but continued to demonstrate sub-par control. Each of Lucas Sims, Luiz Gohara and Max Fried made his MLB debut for the Braves in 2017, but none from that group of top prospects saw enough time or experienced enough success to be considered locks to hold down a 2018 rotation spot. Atlanta also has former top prospects Aaron Blair and Matt Wisler on the 40-man roster, but neither has created much cause for optimism in the Majors to this point in his career.

Suffice it to say, while the Braves possess a wealth of intriguing upper-level arms, it’d be something of a surprise if the team did not once again look to bring in some veteran arms to augment a young core of talented but unproven rotation candidates.

Actually it doesn’t. Announcing you’re retiring doesn’t make a player retired. Players must file formal papers with the league to do so. Bernie Williams stopped playing in 2006 but didn’t file his paperwork until 2015. A player isn’t eligible for his pension or to be on the Hall of Fame ballot until he does so.

Dickey saying whether he’s retiring is irrelevant to his contract. The Braves are contractually obligated to exercise or decline the option unless Dickey formally relieves them of that responsibility. Michael Cuddyer did that with the Mets although his failure to fulfill the contract would’ve done the same thing.

Can probably get close to 8 MM again. There is always a shortage of pitching. Basically depends on if he is willing to go wherever that money is. There has to be at least a couple of clubs willing to offer him a MLB deal.

The Braves were definitely one of the three. I could be wrong but I think that the other two were Cincinnati and St. Louis. If I recall correctly one of the articles I read mentioned that the three teams were located in fairly short distance from Tennessee. Articles since then all seem to indicate however that Dickey was leaning towards retirement.

2 million from the Padres, maybe Pirates, or some other pitcher friendly variation ballpark currently going through a rebuild or in need of innings. Honestly Miami is a perfect place, 3rd lowest HR rate in NL, can control the knuckleball elements via roof closing, knows NL East, and can eat innings during rebuild. Get him Jeter.

The pirates are not going through a rebuild. If Kang, and Marte were not suspended last year they could’ve made a run at the division. If Polanco, and Cervelli can stay healthy next year, and they get Kang back, or sign a 3B such as Nunez, they’ll be fighting for a wild card spot

Things would be very bad in atlanta if wisler or blair had to pitch on a regular basis. My guess, not in order, is Gohara, Newcomb, Folty, and Teheran get the first part of next season started. Lucas sims would probably get first look in spring at the number 5 spot, Fried looked good at times this year but im not sure they would want a third southpaw in the order. He did go back to minors at the end of the year to stretch back out as a starter so he could still win a job in spring training. I will miss ra dickey though, even when he had a bad game he was still fun to watch.

Wisler has been horrible in his major league stints with the Braves over the past 2 years. If he doesn’t improve noticeably next season he’ll be a prime change of scenery candidate. Overall performance of the Braves’ young SPs has been uninspiring.

If Dickey doesn’t retire he would be a perfect fit for the Mets. They could put him in the Colon role of innings eater and would bring a veteran presence to a young staff. Wonder if Dickey would consider going back?

Braves could trade with O’s. Markakis,J.Johnson,Pache,Ruiz,A.Garcia,Wisler,Sims,Muller, and I.Anderson FOR Machado,Santander, and O.Peralta. Trade Kemp and Demeritte to White Sox for D.Cease. trade M.Adams and B.Wilson to Royals for J.Staumont.

Braves fans do not think twelve man trades happen or believe in telepathy, although some of us have a good sense of humor. Can you read my mind or in between the lines?

Machado wouldn’t even be a target due to hitting free agency after 2018 and the Braves not being ready to sign a superstar 3B, yet. Wisler, Sims, Muller, and Ian Anderson are hardly wet behind the ears at the Big League level, so qualifying them as bad players is a stretch. I, usually, just enjoy these type of trade posts and take them as a likely fantasy player/trader and grin.

I hope we get Yu Darvish, Mile Moustakis,trade Markakis and Kemp if we can and put Acuna in there I like Matt Adams but he is best served in American League maybe package him and someone for a power hitting outfielder and we get rid of Jim Johnson and improve bullpen maybe Mike Minor and some of the minor leaguers any thoughts?

I’ve long liked Minor and would love to give him a shot. I would really, really hope we don’t sign Moustakas as he is so likely to be overpaid after the first year or two of the contract. I really want to believe in Austin Riley and hope we see him by September next year for an audition for opening day 2019. I want the Braves to contend but think it would be wiser for them to stick with Ruiz and Camargo for the if they believe Riley will be ready.